Review: It would be fair to say that "The Adventure Of Kohsuke Kindaichi" is a "cult album". While many will have heard snippets of some of its tracks in hip-hop tracks and via dusty disco re-edits (a number have been given the scalpel treatment in the past), few outside of Japan have been able to get the album since it was released way back in 1977. The premise is odd - composer Kentaro Haneda created the disco and jazz-funk set as a soundtrack to a series of detective novels - but the music is superb: a zany but hugely entertaining mixture of nods to various soundtrack styles underpinned by killer disco grooves and swirling orchestral movements. We'd heartily recommend checking out the clips ASAP.

Review: Jazz-man Greg Foat has always been more open-minded and eclectic than many give him credit for, delivering nods to pastoral folk, movie soundtracks and library music amongst his more jazz-focused output. Even so, "Photosynthesis" is still a curveball, featuring as it does drowsy and mostly leisurely soundscapes that move from Radiophonic Workshop influenced weird-outs and mutant lounge music, to stoned horizontal grooves and post trip-hop soundscapes. Interestingly, some of the album's standout moments come laden with woozy electric pianos and the kind of hazy, slow motion guitar motifs that evoke mental images of long, drawn-out sunsets.

Review: Greg Foat and Warren Hampshire are two the UK's most interesting minds when it comes to contemporary jazz experimentation, and their recent partnership for Athens Of The North feels like exactly the right thing at exactly the right moment. With both artists capable of producing many alternate forms of jazz and additive rhythm, Nightshade: Library Music Vol.1, feels like one of their more introspective pieces of work to date, and allows both of them to stretch their aesthetic to its very limits, focusing more on the subconscious atmosphere created by the instruments rather than cheap thrills based on beats and 'dance'. This is a connoisseur's album, and we're glad that this kind of gear is still landing on our shelves. Bless.

Review: Roy Garrett born Roy Sambar in Colonia, New Jersey arrived in New York City hungry to explore the sex and porn scenes he'd seen advertised in the Village Voice's classified section. He danced in Times Square theaters The Gaiety, Ramrod, and Big Top before moving into adult film. From 1979 through 1983 Garret starred in ten films, five of them for Joe Gage, including his lead role in 'Heatstroke'. Throughout this period of self-discovery, he wrote the suite of poems that became 'Hot Rod to Hell'. In 1982 he recorded 48 of the poems with haunting, atmospheric score by Man Parrish, who also did several soundtracks for Gage. The project was produced for the stage and for cassette by Manhattan illustrator Robert W. Richards. Richards calls 'Hot Rod', "a searing voyage through the labyrinths of modern male sexuality; it's geography ranging from porn theaters to back room bars to the intimacy of shared beds. Only a man born at exactly the moment in gay history that Garrett was could have lived through and conceived this work." Roy Garrett tells his stories of sex, violence, truth, and illusion, a visceral and personal a record as any of that moment in gay history pre-AIDS. Joe Gage, describes 'Hot Rod' as, "...sweet danger. This is a perceptive look at the underside of love. It is funny, scary, surprisingly moving and best of all, extremely acute in observing the specifics of the human condition." All poems have been carefully remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. The records come housed in a jacket designed by Gwenael Rattke and includes an 44-page full color magazine with all 48 'Hot Rod' poems plus 44 previously unpublished poems from Garrett's archive. All proceeds from 'Hot Rod' will be donated to Housing Works, a New York City based non-profit fighting the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness.

Review: Originally produced in 1973 as a split LP by guitarist Alan Parker on the first side, and composer John Cameron on the second, this album is one of the KPM 1000 Series twelve inch long playing transcription discs - produced especially for the film, television and radio industries to the highest standards. Eloquently described as "hard afro pop featuring a large percussive rhythm section and front line", it was recorded at Morgan Studios by the pair as a collection of stripped-down African rhythms, virtuoso jazz instrumentation, fuzzed up wah wah guitars and spaced out library breaks. As Cameron himself described it in Unusual Sounds, this is "heavy duty drum-and-bass salsa music".

Review: An LP which features music by originally recorded in 1969 by BBC Radiophonic Workshop members such as the late Delia Derbyshire, Brian Hodgson and the American born composer David Vorhaus: who later formed as the experimental electronic band White Noise. It was released by the Standard Music Library label, set up in 1968 by Bucks Music and London Weekend Television who also supplied production music for use in TV, commercials, radio and film. Many of these tracks were also used in the 1960's cult TV show 'The Tomorrow People' and each one has a short description of the music after the track title. Derbyshire and Hodgson assumed pseudonyms in the credits: Li de la Russe & Nikki St. George respectively. Two of the tracks are co-written by the pair, who also worked together on Unit Delta Plus: an organisation and studio project which was extensively involved in the promotion and exploration of electronic music at the time. Legendary stuff!

Review: "Space Songs" was an album in the "Ballads For The Age of Science" or "Singing Science" series of scientific music for children from the late 1950s and early 1960s. Songs were written by Hy Zaret (lyrics) and Lou Singer (music). Space Songs was released in 1959 by Hy Zaret's label Motivation Records (a division of Argosy Music Corp.) and was performed by Tom Glazer and Dottie Evans.